Richard Slater is confident Chigwell Athletic can reach the final of the Henry Swerner Cup following an epic penalty shoot-out victory over Scrabble Harmen.
First-half efforts from Steve Summers and Daniel Castle put Chigwell in the ascendency. Scrabble rallied superbly in the second half to level at 2-2. Mark Conway put Chigwell back in front with 10 minutes to go, but
Scrabble levelled again in stoppage time to take the quarter-final to penalties.
Chigwell held their nerve in the penalty shoot-out to win 5-4, with Glenn Davis, Steve Summers, Hadley Silver, Mark Conway and Marc Silver converting. Goalkeeper Rob shepherdson made the crucial save that eliminated Scrabble.
Slater said: "We made hard work of it, as for 45 minutes we were superb and should have put the game to bed.
"Fair play to Scrabble, they came out for the second half well and got an early goal which gave them a boost.
"We're delighted to reach the semi-finals and if we can get everyone available, I fancy us for the final."
There was cup joy for North London Raiders, Waldaf Town and Zigzag Marshside.
A fabulous five-goal salvo from Tony Plaskow inspired double-chasing Raiders to a 12-0 victory over St. John's Wood Tigers.
Further strikes from Kevin Lotzof, Rob Cohen, Darren Cohen, Wayne Davidson, David Fox, David Lederman and Andrew Wolfin completed the rout.
Waldaf Town came from behind to conquer Brady Maccabi A 5-3. Town's scorers were Lloyd Becker (2), Ami Wynbourne (2) and Alex Bourne with Tim Green, Gavin Sherman and Andrew Rich responding for Brady.
In an all Division Two clash, Zig Zag Marshside took revenge for their 2-1 defeat against EDRS Stonegrove in the Nathan Horwitz Cup, winning by the same score with a wonder 30 yard strike from Barry Silkman and a second from Paul Shamplina before half time.
Russell Rich pulled one back with six minutes remaining but ZZM held out to progress into the last four.
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